Secretary of State Cord Byrd and backers of a proposed recreational marijuana constitutional amendment quickly appealed after a judge Thursday issued a split decision about invalidating petition signatures for the ballot measure.

Leon County Circuit Judge Jonathan Sjostrom found that state elections officials improperly directed invalidating about 42,000 petitions signed by what are known as "inactive" voters. But he upheld a separate directive to invalidate nearly 29,000 petitions collected for the marijuana initiative by out-of-state petition gatherers.

Byrd's lawyers Thursday immediately filed a notice of appeal at the 1st District Court of Appeal to challenge the part of the ruling dealing with inactive voters. Meanwhile, the political committee Smart & Safe Florida, which is trying to get the proposal on the November ballot, filed a notice of appeal Friday morning because of the part or the ruling on out-of-state petition gatherers.

The campaign hit a snag after a judge nulled hundreds of thousands of signatures

The battle is playing out as Smart & Safe Florida faces a Feb. 1 deadline for submitting at least 880,062 valid petition signatures to the state. The Florida Division of Elections website Friday showed a tally of 675,307 valid signatures, though Smart & Safe Florida said last week more than 1 million voters had signed petitions for the proposal, which would allow people ages 21 and older to use recreational marijuana.

Smart & Safe Florida filed the lawsuit Dec. 29, naming Byrd and Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley as defendants.

Part of the lawsuit involves a Dec. 23 directive by the state to county elections supervisors to invalidate petitions signed by inactive voters. Such voters, the lawsuit said, remain registered to vote but are considered inactive because mail sent to them was undeliverable and their addresses weren't confirmed. Inactive voters can be removed from the voter rolls if they don't vote in two general elections, update their registrations or request vote-by-mail ballots.

Smart & Safe Florida contended that inactive voters' petitions should not be invalidated because they remain registered voters.

"The absurd result of the secretary's directive is that 'inactive' voters can vote for the proposed amendment but cannot have their petitions counted to place the proposed amendment on the ballot to vote for it," the lawsuit said.

But in a filing last week Byrd's attorneys argued the directive on inactive voters was valid and pointed to it being part of state efforts to prevent petition fraud.

In his ruling Thursday, however, Sjostrom said state elections officials improperly relied on a 1993 Florida Supreme Court decision as a basis for the directive. Sjostrom said the directive did not reflect changes in state law made in 1994.

The other part of the lawsuit, involving out-of-state petition gatherers, is tangled in a separate legal fight about a law passed in 2025.

The law prohibited non-Florida residents from collecting signatures for ballot proposals. Groups including Smart & Safe Florida challenged the law in federal court, and U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in July issued a preliminary injunction to block it.

After the injunction was issued, Smart & Safe Florida used out-of-state petition gatherers. But in September, a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of Walker's injunction — effectively allowing the law to be enforced while the legal battle continues.

Smart & Safe Florida's circuit-court lawsuit alleged that Byrd's office improperly directed invalidating petitions collected by out-of-state petition gatherers during the period when the injunction was in effect. It said the out-of-state workers "were validly registered by the Division (of Elections) and lawfully gathered petitions during a roughly two-month period when a preliminary injunction was in force."

But Byrd's attorneys pushed back last week, contending that Walker's preliminary injunction "did not remove the relevant statutes from Florida law or render those circulators eligible, even on a temporary basis."

Sjostrom on Thursday sided with the state on the issue, citing Earley's invalidating signatures after the directive.

"The evidence does not support the element of a clear legal right to overturn Supervisor Earley's invalidation of petitions gathered in violation of the currently effective statute prohibiting collection by non-residents," the judge wrote. "This circumstance supports judicial restraint, not intervention."

After falling short in 2024, the stage is set for a judicial review of the ballot initiative

Smart & Safe Florida also sought to pass a recreational marijuana amendment in 2024, but fell short of receiving the required 60 percent voter approval. Gov. Ron DeSantis spearheaded efforts to defeat the 2024 amendment.

In addition to needing to meet the Feb. 1 signature deadline, Smart & Safe Florida needs approval from the Florida Supreme Court of its proposed ballot wording. Attorney General James Uthmeier, who helped lead efforts to defeat the 2024 amendment, has urged the Supreme Court to reject the proposal.